Return to Shakespeare's Sonnet 9 |
1.
wet a widow's eye: i.e., die and leave behind a weeping widow.
3.
issueless shalt hap to die: happen to die childless.
4.
makeless: mateless, widowed.
5.
The world be: the world will be. still: always.
7.
private: individual.
9-10.
Look what all unthrift in the world doth spend / Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it: whatever unthriftiness spends in this world only changes places, and the world always makes use of it. In other words, the world's goods can't be totally wasted, because even when a spendthrift throws away his money, someone else gets it and uses it. This assertion is a set-up for what the poet says next, which is that if an individual's beauty is not passed on to children, it is totally wasted.
10.
his: its.
11.
beauty's waste hath in the world an end: wasted beauty comes to an end in this world.
12.
the user: i.e. the one who had it to use.
14.
murd'rous shame: shameful act of murder.